Property type
SEO for bed and breakfasts: every night matters when there are four rooms
A B&B with four rooms at 60 per cent occupancy sells about 876 nights a year, and every one that goes through a platform gives away a sixth of the rate or more. The good news is that a B&B can put its own rate into Google's price list without a booking engine, by typing it into the listing, and the searches that fill a B&B are specific enough that no platform has a page for them. The Local tier at £399 a month covers one property and one listing; the listing build on its own is £250.
What changes for a B&B
Four things that are different from a hotel
- The category is Bed & breakfast or Guest house, not Hotel
- The lodging searches Google puts you in follow the primary category. A B&B set to Hotel drops out of the B&B searches and competes with properties it cannot beat. We set it to what you are, with the true additional categories.
- Rates can be typed in
- Eligible individual properties enter rates and availability directly in the Business Profile, by calendar or bulk editor, and Google shows them as a free booking link pointing at your site or your phone number. A B&B with a rate card does not need a booking engine to stop the name search going to Booking.com.
- The breakfast is a search
- "Full Welsh breakfast", "vegan breakfast", "early breakfast for walkers" are typed into Google and into ChatGPT. The breakfast page with photos of the actual plate is a page no platform can write.
- The owner does everything
- The review ask happens at breakfast on the last morning, the reply is written that evening, the photos are taken with a phone. The routine has to fit a day that starts at six, and ours does: a sentence, a link, a reply.
The searches a B&B wins
Specific, local, and unwritten by the platforms
Guests searching for a B&B are usually searching for a reason: a walk, a hospital visit, a job on a site nearby, a dog, a wedding in the village. Each reason is a search, and a page that answers it in the first person, with the honest details and a rate, ranks in your area within a few months.
- “B&B with full Welsh breakfast near Snowdon”
- “guest house with parking Chester”
- “dog friendly B&B Pembrokeshire coast path”
- “B&B with drying room for walkers”
- “contractor accommodation midweek Shrewsbury”
- “B&B near the Countess of Chester Hospital”
The site a B&B needs
Five pages, fast, with the rate on them
- Rooms, one section or page per room with the bed, the bathroom, the view, the rate and the photos.
- Breakfast, with the plate photographed and the times stated.
- Where we are and what is near, the walks, the hospital, the venue, the parking, in the first person.
- Book, a form or an engine, the phone number one tap away, the total shown first.
- Questions, dogs, arrival times, dietary needs, cancellation, answered plainly.
If the current site can carry these, we fix it. If it is a page on a directory or a template from 2014, the build is quoted separately.
Platforms and the guest list
Keep the platforms, stop them taking your regulars
Booking.com, Airbnb and the local tourism board's booking system each bring guests a B&B would not otherwise see, and each takes a cut of the stay in one form or another. The regular who comes for the show every August, the contractor who stays midweek every month, the couple who found you through a friend: those should never cost a commission. A name on the breakfast table, a tick box for the email list, one message a season, and a direct rate that carries the packed lunch or the flexible cancellation does the rest.
The maths for your own numbers is in the calculator on the pricing page.
Questions hotel owners ask us
Do I need a booking engine for three rooms?
Not to start. A B&B with a fixed rate card can type rates and availability straight into the Google listing and take the booking by phone, email or a simple form, and phone bookings count as direct. Once the diary is busy enough that you are turning people away by email, an engine pays for itself; some UK engines have a free tier for small properties.
Should a B&B be on Booking.com and Airbnb?
Usually both, for the guests who would never find you, and both cost you a share of each stay. The work here is about the guests who search your name or your kind of stay, so that those book with you, and the platforms are left with the ones they actually found.
How many reviews does a B&B need?
Enough to be in the same range as the two or three properties above you in the hotel module for your village, with a recent one. Twenty steady reviews with replies beat sixty from three years ago. The ask at breakfast on the last morning is the whole routine.
Can I show a lower price for direct bookings?
Not publicly under the OTA's parity terms, but you can add breakfast choices, a packed lunch for walkers, parking or a flexible cancellation to the direct rate, and you can quote a lower rate by phone or to past guests.
Find out whether your B&B's name search is booking direct
Send us the property name and the village. We search it with real dates, tell you who is in the price list, and what the listing and five pages would take.